Well, sorry for not updating this over the last few days, but things got a bit out of control. On Monday 19th, we left Ulm and headed down towards Austria. On the A7 autobahn about 60 miles south of Ulm, one of our group decided to make an unscheduled dismount and hurl his bike down the motorway at about 100mph.
The pack of bikes was running at 74mph on my cruise control. There was me and another two bikes at the front, then a bit of a gap was developing, and another 8 bikes further behind. One rider near the back decided to come up to the front and gave it a big handful. He must have been passing the rest of the bikes at significantly past 100 mph, when he developed a front wheel wobble, turning into a tank slapper which promptly ejected him from the bike. They parted company and both bounced, flipped and rolled along the A7 until coming to a halt.
Luckily enough, the A7 was nearly empty of traffic, he didn't get run over or hit anything solid. He was a very lucky boy indeed and his protective clothing did the job.
Broken shoulder blade, 5 broken ribs, 3 broken toes. Lots of bruising, but he has all of his skin. The bike is a mess though and will almost certainly be written off. The German emergency services were on site in about 7 minutes and took him to hospital. German Police recovered the bike and put that into storage. All in all, the German emergency services were incredible. Luckily we had a couple of native German speakers in the group too.
Speaking to the rider the next day, all he could tell me is that he booted it to get up the front, realised he was going too fast and totally shut off the throttle. He "may" have grabbed a handful of brake at the same time.
Anyway. That put a damper on the day. In the end, most of us continued to Zell am See asper the original plan, but a few hours later than expected, The rider's best mate stayed with him in hospital and then joined us the following day once everything was 100% sorted. One point to note - he has since found out that his travel insurance only covered him for bikes up to 120cc....so he's going to have to pay to get himself back home.
The bloke on the left took the unscheduled dismount.
The pack of bikes was running at 74mph on my cruise control. There was me and another two bikes at the front, then a bit of a gap was developing, and another 8 bikes further behind. One rider near the back decided to come up to the front and gave it a big handful. He must have been passing the rest of the bikes at significantly past 100 mph, when he developed a front wheel wobble, turning into a tank slapper which promptly ejected him from the bike. They parted company and both bounced, flipped and rolled along the A7 until coming to a halt.
Luckily enough, the A7 was nearly empty of traffic, he didn't get run over or hit anything solid. He was a very lucky boy indeed and his protective clothing did the job.
Broken shoulder blade, 5 broken ribs, 3 broken toes. Lots of bruising, but he has all of his skin. The bike is a mess though and will almost certainly be written off. The German emergency services were on site in about 7 minutes and took him to hospital. German Police recovered the bike and put that into storage. All in all, the German emergency services were incredible. Luckily we had a couple of native German speakers in the group too.
Speaking to the rider the next day, all he could tell me is that he booted it to get up the front, realised he was going too fast and totally shut off the throttle. He "may" have grabbed a handful of brake at the same time.
Anyway. That put a damper on the day. In the end, most of us continued to Zell am See asper the original plan, but a few hours later than expected, The rider's best mate stayed with him in hospital and then joined us the following day once everything was 100% sorted. One point to note - he has since found out that his travel insurance only covered him for bikes up to 120cc....so he's going to have to pay to get himself back home.
The bloke on the left took the unscheduled dismount.
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